En Yay Sah

Driven by civil war from his native Sierra Leone to New York, Janka Nabay joined with members of Skeletons, Chairlift, Highlife, and Saadi to make En Yay Sah, a powerfully modern, cosmopolitan introduction to bubu's complex and vibrant rhythms.

Featured Tracks:

"Feba"

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Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang Feba

When war drove him from Sierra Leone to New York, Janka Nabay was one of the most popular musicians in his homeland. He'd been one of the primary performers in the revival and fusioning of bubu music, an ancient folk form that had survived the 18th-century introduction of Islam to the country. At a time when the Sierra Leonean music scene was dominated by imported forms, and especially reggae, the old bubu rhythms injected an energizing shot of local flavor into pop music. For a time, Nabay used to his music to speak out against the country's spiraling civil war, but when rebels co-opted his music during their destructive drives into rural villages, he found himself with few options but to leave.

In the United States, he searched for collaborators while working as a fry cook, and found them not in the Sierra Leonean ex-pat community, but in Brooklyn's indie rock scene. The Bubu Gang, Nabay's backing band on En Yay Sah, comprises members of Skeletons, Chairlift, Highlife, and Saadi, and their method of collaboration was simple: Nabay showed them the rhythms he was working with and the songs he'd written, and he turned them loose. Jon Leland's drums hold down the heavily syncopated bubu beats, the music's strongest tie to tradition, and the rest of the band cooks up a backing for Nabay that sounds so intensely modern it's practically futuristic. Guitarist Doug Shaw plays no rhythm, instead adding color to the music with mildly psychedelic leads that focus on melody when Nabay isn't singing and recede to tonal washes during the verses.

Nabay's weathered but agile voice is the kind of instrument that would likely sound at home on a sparse field recording, so it's curious how well it integrates with Jason McMahon's sleek-toned bass and Michael Gallope's bright, tropical keyboard sounds. The integration is helped by the backing vocals of Syrian-born Boshra AlSaadi, who sings answering phrases to Nabay's leads and functions essentially as part of the rhythm section. Her repeated vocal line on "Ro Lungi" becomes the song's primary hook, complementing and reinforcing the keyboard phrase that serves as the other hook and gives shape to Nabay's rapid-fire lead vocals.

Nabay sings in four languages on the record: his native Temne, a syncretic combination of English and African languages that originated in Western Hemisphere slave communities called Krio, and small amounts of English and Arabic. It reflects his country's complicated history, as well as his own emergence into a wider world from his homeland's small music scene. Bubu music is ancient; En Yay Sah offers a powerfully modern, cosmopolitan introduction to its complex and vibrant rhythms.